Comparison Shopping For Doctors
from the does-it-include-shipping-info? dept
While comparison shopping has had its ups and downs over the last few years, new areas for comparison shopping keep popping up. The latest, according to the NY Times, is that there are many attempts to set up “comparison shopping for doctors.” It’s not quite typical comparison shopping. Instead, it’s just an attempt to take some amount of data and let potential patients drill down through the data and see if it fits with what they want. The article notes that a big problem with this is that there just isn’t that much useful data available — and that some of the available data may not really be indicative of anything. Of course, this story gets much more interesting when tied back with the story we wrote about last week concerning doctors getting pissed off that anyone might criticize them online. It seems unlikely that these data-based sites are going to add much in the way of patient reviews — but it still makes you wonder if doctors will get upset if the “data” ends up making them look much worse than their colleagues.
Comments on “Comparison Shopping For Doctors”
Doctor shopping
This is generaly a bad idea. I am a doctor, and I often see patients who have been to numerous doctors and are trying to pick a doctor who has a treatment plan that the patient wants to have. This is bad, in that the patient is choosing their own treatment, by picking a doctor whose treatment course may be not optimal, or even wrong. You may not like what most of the MDs are saying, but if most of them are choosing one path, then chances are it’s correct.
A quick side note – bedside manner/personality has NO correlation with how good a doctor is.
Re: Doctor shopping
A quick side note – bedside manner/personality has NO correlation with how good a doctor is.
I couldn’t disagree with this more. As with most things in life, trust is key in any relationship. If a brilliant doctor is rude, chances are patients will dislike see him/her. This will cause gaps in visits and gaps in knowledge. Key symptoms could be left out. Many patients either feel rushed so they don’t give info or the doctor doesn’t listen, all signs of bad bedside manner.
There’s no magic book with illness/treatment plan. It’s about trust. Many people I know have had poor medical treatment because the doctor or nurse couldn’t be bothered with listening to what’s wrong.
Sounds like someone’s rationalization for not bothering to improve. “I’ll just keep reading medical journals, I don’t have to talk to people”
Re: doctor's bedside manner
bedside manner/personality has NO correlation with how good a doctor is.
I disagree with this. My family doctor for 15 years just retired and one of the things I liked about him was his “bedside manner/personality.” He had the ability to listen to what I was saying and then know the right questions to ask to get the information he needed. Also, because he could clearly explain the problem and what should be done, I was better able to follow his instructions for medication use, therapy, etc.
Because of his communications skills he was able to diagnose conditions that other doctors had missed and I was better able to do what I needed to do to stay healthy.
Unfortunately, this skill is missing in the doctor I choose to replace him. And I spent a lot of time gathering information before I choose this doctor. Unfortunately, there was very little information available on doctors in my area. In the end all I could do was pick primarily based on location and accepting new patients.
Re: Doctor shopping
I’d love to find a doctor that isnt a glorified auto-mechanic for your body constantly pushing the latest samples from whatever drug company whether I really need them or not (and usually unrelated to what I came for).
There are lots of good things about doctors, but they also all seem to run as a scam clique as well. You cant get reviews on them, you cant get a second opinion if the latter knows you already had a first opinion, a lot of them seem to be lacking basic logic skills and Im not sure Ive every met one that has any similarity to a scientist.
They dont seem to care or understand about the science of your body, just that X does Y in some incredibly huge matrix of cause and effect.
This is born out by the incredibly large number of screw ups that doctors write off as anecdotal.
Finally, except in rare circumstances, doctors dont actually cure you of anything, they just cut things out, sew things up, or supress symptoms but seem to think it was their skill, and not mostly your body healing itself.
Their skill was certainly important in the process, but with the inflated ego many of them walk around with youd think they just laid hands on you and cured you.
Im waiting for Dr. 2.0 to hopefully fix some of these problems. Im sure it’ll be out any day now.
Re: Doctor shopping
I agree that it is not a good idea to doctor shop in order to find a particular treatment. However, it makes sense to shop for a doctor who sees you on time rather than making you wait, who is polite rather than arrogant, who is a person you enjoy talking to, and so on.
how good a doctor is
This whole argument will be based around semantics of the word “good”, guaranteed.
I love my GP – he’s bright, chatty, confident, and has never made a bad decision wrt. my health.
Dr. Windbag, on the other hand, is a complete prick. He’s curt, thinks that having people say ‘ahh’ is a waste of his precious time, and often cancels appointments because he can’t be bothered. He’s also a prodigy.
Which one’s the better doctor? I’ll keep John for my poking and prodding – Windbag I would love to see doing cancer research.
They’re both good, they’re just good at different things. It’s a sad fact that in this day and age being a doctor is part medicine and part PR.
I want to be made to feel at ease, but not if my suave doctor is prescribing a nut-derived medication to me when it will give me an anaphylactic reaction to it.
Re: how good a doctor is
MY DOCTOR LISTENS,BUT DOES NOT UNDERSTAND, HE NEVER ASK ANY QUESTIONS,ABOUT WHER THE PAIN IS OR HOW LONG YOU HAD IT, I THINK HE’S AFRAID TO TOUCH,HE CHECKS FOR THE WRONG THINGS,TESTS ARE NORMAL, THEN TELLS ME I’M NUTS BECAUSE NOTHING IS WRONG, I HAVE LOTS OF ARTHRITIS PAIN, NEVER ASK HOW I FEEL, ARTHRITIS MAKES YOU FATIGUE,BUT TO HIM I’M DEPRESSED, I’M HAPPY JUST HAVE LOTS OF PAIN. NOT A FRIENDLY BEDSIDE MANNER,AND VERY ARROGANT
comparison shopping for doctors is close but no ci
After reading this article I tried to use the links provided to tryout the capabilities of health related comparison shopping. My experience was that it is quite diversified and still quite confusing. Each link / site is still not sure how this should be done. There seems to be little consistency.
Andrew
http://www.PriceComparison.com